


letters from a dead world

by tristesses



Category: The Innsmouth Legacy - Ruthanna Emrys
Genre: Epistolary, F/F, cross-dimensional romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 18:58:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12990432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/pseuds/tristesses
Summary: Catherine Trumbull writes the most important letter of her life.





	letters from a dead world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellen_fremedon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellen_fremedon/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! Hope you enjoy it!

_My dearest Saujing,_ she began.

No, it wasn't right. It didn't fit. Sentimentality had never suited Catherine, and despite the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this letter, she would not portray herself as something she was not. Something else, then.

She had a wastepaper basket full of "something else," admittedly, but she was sure she would find the proper salutation eventually.

She paused, pen poised over her paper, and a memory trickled through the blocks the intruder had placed in her memory like stones holding back a torrent: standing in a circular room wallpapered with something like movie screens, though there was no projector she could see and the images were clearer, more lifelike, than any film she had ever seen. The room was filled with a translucent gas, shimmering through the color spectrum like an oil spill, and she manipulated it with her sinuous tentacles, each twitch and sway causing new images to flicker on the screens around her, and beside her —

Her hand felt heavy, her fingers thick and inflexible. She dropped the pen to stretch them and wished for words she couldn't remember. She had only scraps to offer, and a warm glow heating her up even in the bitter cold whenever the thought of Saujing crossed her mind.

_Saujing,_ she tried again,

_Do you remember the archival tubes? There is little I remember from our time together, only bits and pieces, but this I_ _do_ _recall: devouring aeons of history, science, mathematics, with you by my side, in our strange and unfamiliar forms, learning how they moved and how the brain functioned, capable of so much more than our frail human bodies. Do you remember our conversations on trans-quantum dynamics, or the cityscapes we saw as we traveled through the stars and what lies between them?_

_I do._

_I remember, too, picking our way through our first conversation. Mathematics, the universal language, was our only guide, for even if I knew the Sino-Tibetan languages, your dialect would have evolved past my understanding; such is the case when we measure time in millennia and not decades, or even centuries. Fumbling through numbers, then the alphabet — and I was so lucky that you were at least tangentially familiar with English, even the mutated thing it had become by your time — and I remember when we managed to communicate our names, and the way our pincers snapped in joy._

_Our conversations are vaguer in my memory. I wonder how much you recall, if the Yith who inhabited you left you more than mine did. Or perhaps you don't remember at all, and this message will be nothing but nonsense to you. I cannot say. What I_ _do_ _remember is how I felt, which is unusual for me — to prioritize emotion over fact. But oh, Saujing, you made me_ _feel_ _for the first time in my life. I treasure it, this heat you left me with, and I hope that as time goes on, I remember more._

_There is more I want to say — I crave a lifetime of conversations with you. But by the time you hear this message, I will be less than a ghost. Although I want to pine for you, I know I can't; there is too much more to discover. The Yith, my unwelcome guest, left me notes and advice, scrawled in the margins of my books and my classroom notes. There is so much to learn still. You will understand, of course; doubtless you'll feel the same way. You will be practical, just like I am._

_I hope you remember me. I hope you hold me dear to you, just as you are dearest to me. And perhaps we will meet again someday, for the universe is vaster and more incomprehensible than I ever could have imagined._

_Until then, I remain your loving Catherine._

She set down the pen and looked for a long time at the letter. Sentimentality, indeed. But she had always promised Saujing honesty. And Catherine kept her promises.

 


End file.
